TTHE LAKES DISTRICT: The day after the snow arrived, the hill country, from a distance, looked like a fairyland of icing sugar and marzipan but, on the summits, it was another story. During a two-hour escape from the typewriter – so enchanting did the sunlight on the snow seem – I walked up Cawdale Moor from the summit of Kirkstone and found that the easiest walks on the Lakes region were a minor Arctic adventure. There was no one there and the wind was the kind that sought you out, seemingly directing its strongest gusts at you and nowhere else. Strong enough to stop you cold and dead. There are many kinds of snow and this was powder – crystalline material, the consistency of flour, that hasn't melted or frozen or consolidated, the kind of snow skiers dream of. But I didn't ski, and it was hard work getting knee- or thigh-deep in snowdrifts—like climbing a cotton staircase with two-foot-high steps. The main drawback, however, was the drifting snow – the top layer of powder – which filled eyes, mouths, ears and clothing and reduced visibility, on a day of bright sunshine and blue skies, to a few meters . The blown powder ran down the hillside, piled up snowdrifts to the top of the stone walls, and turned me into a snowman in minutes.
From the summit I could see plumes of snow on the peaks of Helvellyn and what looked like a maelstrom above the cornices of Red Screes, but in the valleys it just looked like a sunny winter's day. But the wind moderated on the descent, and by the time I reached the pass the first skiers were out on the lower snowdrifts and well-bundled youngsters were frolicking on sleds and tea trays.
